Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors
used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

The Boar

The boar is Richard’s heraldic symbol, and is used several
times throughout the play to represent him, most notably in Stanley’s dream
about Hastings’s death. The idea of the boar is also played on in
describing Richard’s deformity, and Richard is cursed by the duchess
as an “abortive, rooting hog” (I.iii.225).
The boar was one of the most dangerous animals that people hunted
in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and Shakespeare’s audience would
have associated it with untamed aggression and uncontrollable violence.